I'm Gonna Love You Through It
by lilythesilly
Summary: Jarley. Jake Puckerman never intended to be a people watcher. But he notices things, and one day he notices that Marley Rose isn't in school. Possible spoiler for future episodes. Slight Jake/Kitty.


Jake didn't intentionally become a people watcher. Growing up with no friends, its just something that he's been accustomed to. Even now that he has Kitty he finds himself slipping into old habits. Her voice is incredibly shrill so he tends to tune her out during lunch and scan the cafeteria. Part of him really wants to go sit with the glee club (even though the majority of them freak him out), but Kitty has her claws sunk into him (literally, her hand is pressing his thigh down onto the bench), so he just watches them for a while.

Blaine and Sam are arguing over who the best Avenger is; Iron Man or Captain America (its the Hulk, obviously), and Sugar is putting glitter all over Unique's eyelids. His eyes roam the table a few times before he figures out that Marley isn't there. He looks around the cafeteria a few times and notices that she isn't there at all.

He reaches down and peels Kitty's hand off of his thigh, muttering, "I'm going to get another fruit cup," when she turns to glare at him. She rolls her eyes and returns to her conversation with a few other Cheerios.

Jake sighs as he makes his way back to the lunch line. He really hates being Kitty's boyfriend sometimes.

He makes his way to the front of the front of the lunch line and clears his throat. Marley's mom looks up and he looks down, "Uh, hi. I'm Jake, I don't know if you-"

Marley's mom interrupts him with a soft smile, "Of course I remember you, sweetie. I make a mental note to remember my daughter's friends."

He smiles a bit at that, because he still isn't used to having friends, "Thank you, ma'am." He looks around the cafeteria once more, "I was actually wondering where she was. I haven't seen her since this morning before school."

Her mom sighs, "She went home this morning, she wasn't feeling well." Jake nods and thanks her before turning to leave the cafeteria. Once he's in the hallway he frowns. Marley looked fine this morning when he saw her (well, actually she looked more than fine, but he wasn't in a position to think about her like that. They were friends). But then again, he wasn't one to judge. He ditches his classes all the time.

He turns the corner and notices a few flyers stuck on a locker. Once he gets closer does he realize that its Marley's locker. He picks up on of the flyers and squints at the phrase "Save the Whales!" on the outside, because why would they stick something like that on Marley's locker? Its only when he opens the flyer to see a picture of her face glued on to a whale's body does he understand.

And he's _pissed._

He rips all of the flyers off of the locker and storms down the hallway and bumps into Kitty, who he assumes was looking for him. He holds the paper up to her face, "What the hell is this?"

She grins and laughs, "Don't you like it? I came up with the idea last night and had some of the football players make copies this morning during study hall. You should've seen her-"

"Kitty," he interrupted, "I thought I made it clear that you and your stupid pack of goons weren't gonna make fun of her."

Kitty stops laughing and blinks at him, "Are you _serious_? Why does she matter anyway? _I'm_ your girlfriend, not _her_."

"She's the only friend I have, so you don't make fun of her, got it?" He asks and Kitty just stares at him for a few minutes, "_Kitty_."

She rolls her eyes and glares at him, "Fine." She turns to leave and then turns to look at him, "And don't think you get to look at me naked tonight, either."

Jake smirks, "Not much to look at, sweetheart." Kitty scoffs and storms down the hall and around the corner. Jake sighs and rips up the flyer and throws the shreds into the garbage can because he doesn't believe in recycling.

Since he and Kitty aren't speaking, they don't ditch to make out behind the bleachers, so he actually has to sit through class. Once school is over he decides to ditch Glee and drive over to Lima Heights.

After he drops his things off at his house he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and crosses the rows of trailers before stopping at Marley's. He notices that her mom's car isn't there so he knocks on the door a few times before Marley opens it. She's wearing a pair of yoga pants, a Guns N' Roses shirt and her hair is in a loose ponytail, and it looks like she's been sleeping all day. She's still staring when he realizes he hasn't said anything yet. He decides on, "You weren't in school today. You missed it, I actually went to class for a change."

Marley gives a half smile, "I never thought the day would come. I've been a good influence on you," she laughs softly, "but I didn't study for my World History test, and I really didn't feel like failing, so I came home to study."

Jake's brows furrow, "That's why you came home?"

She nods, "Yeah. Why?" Her voice cracks a bit, which means she was lying.

Jake sighs and rests his arm on the door frame, "I saw the flyers, Marley."

Marley blinks for a minute, and then a look of clarity appears on her face, "OH. Those flyers! Yeah. I'm all for saving the whales, but I misunderstood what Kitty was going with when she made them." And then she laughs.

Jake searches her face for a few minutes, "So you're okay?"

She nods, "Yeah, totally fine." And this time her voice doesn't crack at all.

He nods, "Okay then." He starts down the steps and then turns to look at her, "I'll be playing Assassin's Creed all night, so if you're mom comes home late again you can always come over for dinner."

She grins, and laughs a bit, "I'm actually in charge of dinner for us tonight, so I'll be fine. But thank you! See you tomorrow, Jake." She waves at him before closing the door.

Jake frowns, because even though her voice didn't crack in that last sentence he feels like she just lied to his face.

Two days later she pops up at his locker and waves a paper in front of his face. He grabs it out of her hands and laughs when he sees the "A+" written at the top of her World History test, "You got a better score than I did."

Marley rolls her eyes, "If you actually applied yourself, your grade would probably be higher than mine."

He shakes his head as the lunch bell rings. He looks at her, "Wanna eat lunch with me today? Kitty talking about Winter Formal will be much more bearable if I have someone sane there with me."

Marley shakes her head and laughs, "As tempting as that sounds, I'm actually going to go to the kitchen and eat with my mom today. But I'll see you in Physio?" She asks hopefully.

Jake laughs and shakes his head, "Probably not. Still protesting." She laughs and nods her head before waving goodbye and heading down the hall.

His worry about the flyers affecting her has disappeared until Sugar approaches him one day in Glee and says, "I'm all for dieting to fit into clothing because as the saying goes: 'You don't alter Vera to fit you, you alter yourself to fit Vera', but Marley looks skinny. And not pretty skinny," she clarifies, "but sickly skinny. I think she's starving herself or something."

Jake nods and thanks Sugar before looking back down at the sheet music in his hands. That was stupid. He'd seen Marley eat a bunch of times in the past two weeks. At least, he thinks he had.

* * *

"Aren't you going to eat?" Jake asks her the following day at lunch. Sugar can't be right, Marley isn't stupid enough to do something like starve herself, but he has to make sure.

She laughs and nods and takes a bite of her sandwich, and then wrinkles her nose, "I think I should buy my lunch from now on." They both laugh as they continue to eat their lunch. Marley looks at the clock a few minutes before lunch ends, "I have to go to my locker to get my Trig book. We needed it today, right?"

Jake shrugs, "I wouldn't know, I didn't go this morning. But I think so." Marley laughs and shakes her head before getting up playfully shoving him aside. He rolls his eyes and watches her leave. He stares at his lunch for a few minutes before he decides to get up and follow her. After he exits the cafeteria he sees her duck into the girl's bathroom. Since he's no stranger to that particular area of the school, he has no trouble walking in. When he walks in and doesn't see her, he assumes she's using the bathroom and he's just being paranoid.

He's about to leave when he hears it. It sounds like someone's trying to gag themselves, and that's when his eyes widen. He walks to the last stall and kicks it open to see Marley leaned over the toilet with her fingers halfway down her throat. She looks up at him with wide eyes.

"Marley, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

She blinks at him, "You aren't blind. What does it look like I'm doing?"

Jake is puzzled by her tone, because never has he heard Marley Rose hiss out something, ever. "Well it looks like you're trying to-"

Marley interrupts him again, this time with a glare, "Shouldn't you be protesting a class on religious grounds or making out with Kitty right now? Leave me alone." He flinches at her tone, because it's usually warm and sweet, not hard and icy like it is now.

"Look, I'm just-"

"I'm fine," she hisses, "I just want you to leave me alone." And when he leaves the girl's bathroom, that's what he does.

He doesn't talk to her after that. He sits on the opposite end of the choir room, and doesn't offer to do any more solos. Instead he sits and watches as Blaine and Tina argue over the solo for Regionals and how Marley manages to move closer and closer to the back of the room. Her clothes hang off of her body now and her eyes are surrounded by dark circles and she doesn't even acknowledge him.

The next week as he's walking to Glee he decides to stop by Marley's locker to apologize, because his life without her has been pretty quiet. Especially after he broke up with Kitty. All he wanted to do after that was go to Marley's to play Call of Duty and trash Kitty, because he knew that Marley totally would. But he didn't, because she told him to leave her alone and he was stupid enough to listen.

As he turns the corner he notices that her locker's open and as he gets a little closer he realizes that someone's lying in front of it. And when he gets even closer he realizes that it's Marley. He rushes over and crouches down beside her and pulls her into his lap. Her chest is still rising and falling, so he takes that as a good sign and pulls out his phone to dial 911.

Once he's assured that they're coming he shakes her a little and after a minute or so her eyes flutter open a little and he smiles. He presses a kiss to her forehead and murmurs, "You're going to be okay."

When the ambulance arrives he runs to the cafeteria to alert her mom, and then rides with her to the hospital. Once they get there, her mom goes behind the swinging doors to speak with the doctors. So he decides to sit in those uncomfortable plastic chairs and stare at the ceiling.

Once he's counted the number of ceiling tiles five times, Marley's mother comes out and looks at him, "She's awake now, so you can go see her if you want."

He nods and follows her through the doors and into the hospital room. Marley is sitting, propped up against some pillows and staring at her nails. Marley's mom places a hand on his shoulder, and then addresses Marley, "I'll be outside if you need me."

Marley looks up and nods before noticing Jake in the room. She gives him a small smile and waves. He grins and after her mom leaves he walks over to the bed and takes a seat in the chair beside it. He stares at the pattern on the blanket for a long time before Marley speaks up, "I'm sorry," she murmurs softly.

Jake looks up and shakes his head, "Its not your fault. Well, all of its not your fault. I shouldn't've listened to you when you said to leave you alone," he chuckled a bit, "But I can't really say no to you."

Marley reaches over and takes his hand, "This is my fault. All of it. Because you tried to stop me, and I didn't listen." She sighed before continuing, "I thought that if I stopped eating for a few weeks then I'd be skinny enough to look like Kitty, but once I tried to stop, I couldn't." She bit her lip and looked away.

Jake was confused, "Why would you want to look like Kitty?"

She doesn't look at him when she speaks, but she holds his hand a little tighter, "Its stupid, and very cliche. But...I thought that if I looked like her, you'd realize that I was the one you really wanted and not her."

Jake sighs and lets his head drop. He raises it and places his finger on the side of her face so she'll turn to look at him, "I've always wanted you, Marley."

She blinks back a few tears, "Then why were you dating her?"

Jake focuses on the painting on the wall for a few moments, "That really isn't a conversation we should have now, or here," he kisses her hand, "but soon."

Marley swallows and leans back against the pillows, "Soon might have to wait," she pauses and takes a breath, "The doctors think, and my mom agrees, that I need to go away for a while. They're sending me to this place, Castlewood, in St. Louis. They specialize in treating eating disorders. So, I'll be there until the end of the year most likely."

Jake nods, "Well, it's gonna help you get better and I'm all for that," he laughs, "even though not having you around will suck balls."

She laughs, loud and clear, and it reminds him of the Marley he fell in love with, "It won't be that bad, I promise." She looks at him for awhile before smiling, "And, if my mom still likes you in a few months, she might let you come visit me when I get home."

Jake laughs, "I'll do you one better. I'll be there when you get out to take you home. I've got my license and everything." She smiles at him and nods. And then a nurse comes in to gently remind them that visiting hours will be over soon.

He nods and stands up, leaning over to press a kiss to her forehead and then leans his against her for a moment, "You're something else, Marley Rose." He smiles, "Please,_ try_ to get better?" He asks.

She does something that surprises them both: she leans up and presses her lips to his softly before saying, "I'll do you one better. I _will _get better."

* * *

**Author's Note: **I've been shipping Jarley so hard lately. And when I read the possible spoiler that Marley could be facing trouble with her weight, this popped into my head. I'm considering doing a follow up for when she actually does get out of the facility, but I'm not sure yet. Let me know what you guys think!


End file.
